Automatic ballast-shifting device



H. A. SELAH. 7

AUTOMATIC BALLAST S H'IFTINGD EVICE. APPLICATION fILED AUG-22, Isms.

1,339,628. Patented May 11, 1920.

W INVENTYOR.

MTTORNEY v and useful Automatic UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

HOWARD A. SELAH, 0E NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, AssIeevo -or ONE-HALFTO ALBERT c. PEDRICK, 0E NEWARK,'NEW JERSEY.

AUTOMATIC BALLAST-SHIFTING DEVICE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented May 11, 1920.

Application filed August 22, 1916. Serial'No. 116,306.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HowARD A. SELAH, a citizen of the United States, and residing in the city of Newark, county of Essex, and State of New Jersey, have invented a new Ballast-Shifting Device, of which the following is a specification.

In order to prevent undue listing of ships by the shifting of the cargoes or passengers from one side to the other, it is the common practice to provide a number of heavily weighted casks, upon the main deck, which are rolled from side to side to counteract the listing tendency; or to provide water ballast tanks in pairs, one on each side of the vessel with means for pumping the water from one of a pair of tanks to the other. In each of the cases referred to, it requires one or more persons to attend to the cask shifting or to the pumping mechanism.

My invention contemplates the provision of automatic means for shifting ballast from one side of a shipto the other; suchshifting being governed entirely by the listing tendency of the ship.

In carrying. out my inventionI make use of the devices and mechanism illustrated in the accompanying drawings wherein:

Figure 1, illustrates in diagram the complete operative mechanism and Fig. 2, shows the shifting ballast and motor supported upon a trolley car upon the flanges of the ships deck beams.

Similar reference numerals refer to like parts throughout the specification and drawings.

As a convenient means for supporting the shifting ballast, I make use of the deck beams 1 of the ship,and mount upon the flanges 2 thereof the car 3, in such a manner that said car may travel from side to side of the ship. Upon the car 3, I locate a reversible motor hgearing the same in any suitable manner to the wheels of the car to drive the same. Mounted upon the car are the brakes 5 actuated by the brake magnets 6 in such a manner that when such magnets are energized the brakes 5 are withdrawn from the wheel of the car, but when said magnets deenergize the brakes will be set. I may alsoprcvide a track brake 7, actuated in thesame manner by means of a brake magnet 8. It will be understood that the brake shoe of the track brake engages the flange 20f the deck beam. Suspended from the frame of the carin any suitable manner is the heavy weight 9.

It will be'readil'y seen that if the motor l is operated to drive the ear from one side of the ship to the other along the deck beam. the weight 9 will be transferred. from one side of the ship to the otherj It ,only remains to operate the motor 4 to drive the car to the rising side. of the ship. .I will therefore, proceed with the description of the mecha nism for operating the motors.

On every ship of. any'considerable size, it is the practice to suspend from one of the midship stanchions .on the main deck, a swinging pendulum or pointer, so arranged that as the ship lists from one side to'the other, the tendency of the pendulum, being to remain vertical, will indicate the degrees of the list. I make use of such a pendulum indicator as 10, but instead of permitting it to have its usual amplitude of vibration, l utilize its vibrations to open and close electric circuits. In' Fig. 1 these circuits are diagrammatically shown. The electric power is derived from a storage battery 11.

Upon each side of the pendulum 10, I 10-- catethe adjustable contact points 12 and 13 respectively, and provide contact points 14 and 15, upon the sides of the pendulum as shown. At 16, is located a polarity changing switch; having the two blades respectively 17 and 18, pivoted at their upper extremities and made to alternately contact with points, 19, 20 and 21. 'Mounted' upon the blades 17 and 18.isan armature 22; ranged. between the poles of the two electro magnets 22 and 24. The leading out Wire 25 from the battery 11 runs to the pivot of the blade 18 and the return wire v26leads from the pivot of'fthe' blade 17 to the otherside of the battery 11.

The contacts 19 and 21 are connected together and to the brush 27 by the wire 28. The other contact point 20 is connected by the wire 29 to the other brush 3() of the motor 4. The wire '31 is tapped into the wire25 and leads to the field coil-32 of the motor, the return from the field 32 being by way of the wire 33 to a double contact 34 above the blade17 of theswitch 16, the position shown being neutral.

The spring blade35 which is rigidly con nected to the upper end of the blade 17 will belocatedbetween the double contacts .34 and out of contact therewith. Leading from thecontact. 12 isthe wire136, through anincandescent signal lamp 37 and magnet 24:; thence by the return wire 38 to the negative leading-in wire 26.

Leading from the contact 13 is the wire 39 through the signal lamp 40, magnet 23, and thence by return wire 411 by way of the return Wire 38 and thence the circuit is completed through the leading-in wire 26.

From the circuits thus described, it will be seen that whenever the contact between the points 13 and 15 is closed, the magnet 23 will be energized and this will attract to it the armature 22 thereby shifting the blades 17 and 18 to the contacts 19 and 20, and thereby send a current through the armature of the motor 4 to rotate it in one direction, and whenever the contact between the points 12 and 14; is closed the magnet 24 will be energized, thereby attracting the armature 22 to it and shifting the blades 17 and 18 to the contacts 20 and 21. This will reverse the current through the armature of the motor 4 and consequently reverse the rotation of said armature. In the meantime the polarity of the field 32 is unchanged. The double contact 3% is provided with the spring blade 35 for the purpose of cutting out the field from the battery whenever the I said magnets are deenergized the spring 413 will throw the blades 17 and 18 to the neutral position. I

In order to reduce the wiring and to utilize the current without additional mechanism, I introduce into the wire 29 the two brake magnets 6, so that whenever the circuit through the armature of the motor 4: is closed as above described, the magnets 6 will be energized to withdraw the brakes 5 from the car wheels.

As a means for operating the track brake magnet 8, I provide the following mecha nism: Adjacent to the two blades 17 and 18 are the two contacts 414 and 45 connected by a common wire 46 .to said magnet and thence to the wire 29. These contacts 4% and 45 are in position to engage the blades 17 and 1.8 as they swing from side to side just a little in advance of the engagement of said blades with the contacts '19, 20, and 21, thereby, energizing the track brake magnet 8 before the power is supplied to the motor.

This isas it should be.

In some cases I may make use of what is known as a positive brake, that is, I may provide the brake shoe with teeth to engage corresponding teeth in a rack, adjacent to the flange 2, and disengagement of the brake teeth from the rack teeth would be essential before starting the motor.

As a means of indicating any inoperativeness of the motor, I provide an extended armature shaft 47, upon which I mount the ball governor 48. This governor is of usual spring arm type so arranged that as the governor balls 419 swing out by centrifugal action they will draw the disk contact plate 50 away from a pair of contact points 51.

On each side of the pendulum 10, I lo cate the two spring contacts 52 for engagement with the double contact 53. As the pendulum 10 may swing either one way or the other, the double contacts 53 are con nected together by the wire 5% which leads through the electric bell 55 to the contact 51, and thence the circuit is completed by wire 56 to the return wire 33.

l/Vith this disorder alarm in operation, should the pendulum swing either to one side or the other and therefore close the contacts 13 and 15 or 12 and 1 1, it would simultaneously close the circuit through the bell 55. If the motor l responds to this closed circuit then the disk 50 will immediately be drawn away from the contacts 51, and the bell 55 will not ring. If, for any reason, through breakage or disorder inany way the motor fails to respond, the bell circuit through the bell 55 will remain closed and, therefore, the bell will ring, indicating disorder somewhere which can then be rectified.

The lights 37 and lOSGI'VG to indicate the direction which the ballast shifting motor is being driven for the mechanism of the polarity changing switch 16 is such that only one of said lights can be in operation at a time.

' It will thus be seen that by the mechanism described, I amenabled to shift the heavy ballast from side to side of the shipand to govern the position of the same by'the position occupied by the pendulum 10.

I claim:

1. In a ballast shifting device, the combination of a swinging pendulum, and a laterally shiftable ballast weight, a reversible electric motor and a source of electric supply in open circuit with said motor, a polarity changing switch in said circuit normally biased'to open circuit, and means associated with said pendulum for operating said switch to close said circuit to said motor and actuate the same to shift said weight in a direction opposite to the swing of said pendulum and an automatic brake for preventing the shifting of said weight when said pendulum is in neutral position, and electrical means for releasing said brake upon the swing of said pendulum in either direction.

2. In a ballast shifting device, the com bination of a swinging pendulum, and a ballast weight, an electric motor for laterally shifting said weight, a source of electric supply in open circuit with said motor means actuated by the swing of said pendulum in either direction to close said open circuit and actuatesaid motor to shift said weight in a direction opposite to the swing of said pendulum and a brake for preventing the shifting of said weight when said pendulum is in neutral position, with electrical means actuated by the swing of said pendulum in either direction for releasing said brake.

3. In a ballast shifting device, the combination of a freely swinging pendulum, and a laterally shiftableballast weight, with means actuated by the swing of said pendulum in one direction to shift said ballast weight in the opposite direction, and an automatic brake for preventing the shift ing of said weight when said pendulum is quiescent in a neutral position, and means for releasing said brake actuated by the swing of said pendulum in either direction.

at. In a ballast shifting device, the combination of a freely swinging pendulum, and a laterally shiftable ballast weight, with an electric motor actuated by the swing of said pendulum in one direction to shift said ballast weight in the opposite direction, a spring brake for preventing the shifting of said weight when said pendulum is quiescent in a neutral position and electrical means for releasing said brake upon the swing of said pendulum in either direction.

5. In a ballast shifting device, the combination of a swinging pendulum, and a laterally shiftable ballast weight, a reversible electric motor and source of electric supply in circuit therewith, means actuated by the swing of said pendulum in one direction to close said circuit through said motor to actuate the same to shift said weight in the opposite direction, and an audible disorder alarm connected with said motor, said alarm being rendered operable by the inoperativeness of said motor upon the closing of said circuit therethough.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand.

HOWARD A. SELAH. 

